Quotes from Thornton Wilder

And those who lay in their beds there felt that they were within a wall that the Abbess has built for them. Within all was light and warmth, and without was the darkness they would not exchange even for a relief from pain and from dying.

many people would never have fallen in love if they had not heard about it.

The life of a village in the life of the stars

De nemsokára mi is meghalunk, minket is csak egy kis ideig szeretnek még., aztán elfelejtenek. De a szeretetnek ez teljesen elegendÅ'. A szeretet minden megnyilvánulása visszahull a szeretetre, amelybÅ'l fakadt. Annak, aki szeret, nincsen szüksége arra, hogy emlékezzenek rá. Van az elevenek országa meg a holtak országa, s a híd a szeretet, csak az marad meg, az az élet egyetlen értelme.

There I was in the Congregational Church marryin' a total stranger.

perfectly awful things. Farces,—that's what they are!

She talked that night of all those out in the dark (she was thinking of Esteban alone, she was thinking of Pepita alone) who had no one to turn to, for whom the world perhaps was more than difficult, without meaning.

Well, I heard a lot of the hours struck

series of infatuations for admired writers.

There's a lot of common sense in some superstitions, George.

Braque and James Joyce, they are the incomprehensibles whom anybody can understand

Christmas, 1905 This is a history. But there is only one history. It began with the creation of man and will come to an end when the last human consciousness is extinguished.

The management had prudently replaced the chairs with benches and packing cases. For men without women a cave is sufficient.

EMILY: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?— every, every minute? STAGE MANAGER: No. The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.

Over there are some Civil War veterans. Iron flags on their graves... New Hampshire boys... had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they'd never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves.

There is no adventure in life equal to that of being, and asserting, one's self.

Yes. I declare—easy as kittens.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?

never knew who to send a letter to with the Thornton Wilder stamp.

They even found themselves able to die if they wanted to.

Hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair. Despair all too readily embraces the ills it foresees; hope is an energy and arouses the mind to explore every possibility to combat them.

exasperate the reader as much as he does the sinners he meets on his journey through America selling textbooks. You

we came through the depression by the skin of our teeth;

She made America not just acceptable to Thornton, but necessary;